Rancher Success Story (Tim Sproul, Conservationist)

Director of the Harrison County Conservation Board, Tim Sproul shares some thoughts on economic development.

Transcript: Rancher Success Story

Let me give you an example of where education come into play. It's a grassland environment. It's in the Loess Hills but it's in the northern Loess Hills. The people have signed a conservation easement protecting the land forever. In essence, there will never be residential development on this piece of property. It is within the urban sprawl region of Sioux City so it's feeling tremendous pressure. It's fabulous grassland, just fabulous. These people want to continue to live there. They want their children to continue to be able to enjoy the farm. And they raise livestock. The have registered cattle. They have used their hills to graze their livestock on. And they have found that they have been able to reduce their herd 50% -- reduce their herd 50% -- and the net profit from it was more than when they were using 100 head of cattle. So use 100 and 50 as the example. They now graze 50 instead of 100. Their net profit is more because cattle do better. The calves are larger when they sell them. And the reason they're larger is because they have not stressed the grassland ecosystem as much. So it's providing more nutrients for them. It's a win/win for the grasslands because we have more diversity up there. We've got stronger prairie grasses than we had before. That's a working landscape! Those are the types of things that you can do with education.